Ferrari GT: Evolution

During the course of reviewing Ferrari GT: Evolution, we learned more about Enzo Ferrari than we ever really wanted to know. This isn’t just an officially licensed product, you see… it’s also a huge infomercial for the brand. While we tired of load screens telling us why the Ferrari logo looks the way it does, we loved the game, which is as speedy, elegant and precise as its namesake. We think you’ll have a ball touring the world in your Ferrari of choice.

Ferrari GT Evolution is built on the Asphalt 4 engine, but these are two very different games; where Asphalt 4 is arcade-y and lighthearted, Ferrari is more refined and serious. In other words, you’re not going to outwit the cops or crash your million-dollar Enzo in this game. Instead, you will be trying to adhere to the fastest racing line around corners while snapping out of your drift at the right moment–on-screen displays thoughtfully tell you when you’re drafting, and how far you’ve drifted, while a subtle set of arrows point out the best line to follow. For those familiar with console racing games, it’s a bit like Forza Motorsport.

The game’s tidy heads up display gives you a map of the race with contestants placed inside of it, a lap and race time, a tachometer and a speedometer, as well as your current position in the race. All of this, in addition to the options on the top for controls, camera and menu, somehow manages to stay out of the game’s way during play. There are many, many options available to customize your Ferrari experience, but the most trouble we had was figuring out how we wanted to control the car. Our advice would be to skip the on-screen wheel entirely, leave the accelerometer option aside (even though it works well) and roll with the touch-screen option. That will leave you with two brake pedals on screen, so tapping on them will slow you, while tapping above them on the course steers you.

Once you get the hang of that, drifting turns into an art form. The race gameplay as a whole is pitch-perfect–it’s difficult enough to demonstrate a realistic learning curve, but also forgiving where it needs to be. For instance, flipping your car around will result in the AI correcting you back on track, and slamming into a wall resets your car immediately. That said, after playing for a while the races become a little too easy. We found ourselves aching for more tracks and a difficulty meter to increase the replay value.

Ferrari GT Evolution’s presentation is very, very good on the graphical side, and considerably less than good when it comes to sound. The cars look (appropriately) gorgeous, although they could stand to be even more detailed than they are. While racing, the graphics scale beautifully, generating a fantastic sense of speed and torque. Meanwhile, the techno music is irritating, and we felt that the sound effects should have been much better for such a prestigious Italian racing brand.

Ferrari GT Evolution is an excellent racing game from a technical standpoint, and you’ll get your $9.99 worth of gameplay, but we’d like to see Gameloft offer even more. For instance, the 30-car selection of beautiful Ferraris is great, but there are only 8 tracks; the Wi-Fi multiplayer mode is fun, but we want full online play (which is apparently in the works for an update). Still, all of that is background for the race, and while you’re in the driver’s seat, Ferrari GT delivers the goods.

Earlier today, we sat down with Gameloft’s Carmen Pearson to check out three of the publisher’s upcoming iPhone titles. We’ve been sworn to secrecy on two of the games, but we got the OK to write about the third–Ferrari GT Evolution. This realistic racing game’s coming out in about three weeks, plus or minus, and it’s going to make a lot of driving game enthusiasts very happy.

Ferrari GT Evolution is built on an upgraded version of the Asphalt 4 engine. For instance, the menu screens are laid out in a similar fashion, but they’ve been re-skinned to match Ferrari’s red, silver and black theme.

The in-game graphics, meanwhile, have been upgraded to match the luxurious racecar brand at the center of the product. The background graphics are noticeably sharper; we tried driving an Enzo through Paris in the fall, and could make out individual leaves on the trees bordering the street. The engine’s visual effects have received an upgrade, too. Lens flare is more pronounced than it was in Asphalt 4, and driving through a rainstorm will streak the screen with detailed raindrops.

The gameplay has been pushed away from the arcade extremes of Asphalt 4 to focus more on realistic driving physics and car tuning. You can still choose to steer with touchscreen, faux steering wheel, or tilt controls, but the feel of the game is much less cartoony, and crashing into other cars is no longer a major emphasis. To underscore the racing sim angle, Gameloft’s even included a full race replay feature, in the vein of serious console racers like Gran Turismo series. Ferrari GT Evolution also takes a page from Raging Thunder’s book with the inclusion of online multiplayer.

We don’t have any screens or video to post yet, but we’ll post them as soon as we get them. In the meantime, here’s the product details straight from the publisher:

*Brings the unique experience of owning and racing Ferrari GT cars to the iPhone in this realistic racing simulation game. Players can drive up to 33 variations of authentic Ferrari models that include: Enzo, Testarossa, F40, F430, 250 GTO and more! The game features 10 different cities to race in based on difficulty level and can be unlocked as players progress in the game.

*The racing title takes full advantage of the iPhone’s gaming capabilities and allows you to drive your Ferrari using three different types of controls ï¿½” Touch, Accelerometer and Virtual Wheel.

*Unlike other racing titles, the unique aspect about Ferrari GT Evolution is that you can modify the sensitivity of the controls based on your playing preference. This allows players to have more control of the car and enable them to truly feel like they are racing.

*It also immerses players completely into the Ferrari brand by allowing them to customize and tune each Ferrari model to the specifications they like before races (such as turning on/off the Anti-lock Braking System, Adaptive Steering, Electronic Stability Program, etc.)

*You can also select to play against other friends or competitors with the online or local multi-player modes. At the end of each race, players can watch high quality TV-like replays to see how well they performed.

*Ferrari GT Evolution will be available around December 8 on the App Store for $9.99.

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